Op/Ed

Hail Britannia: U.K. Could Teach U.S. a Thing or
Two About Running Government

Posted February 22, 201 05:00 am | Op-Ed

By
Martin Dyckman

Late in the campaign, the New Yorker satirist Andy
Borowitz wrote that Queen Elizabeth II was offering to
take the colonies back, suggesting that Americans
dissatisfied with their options should just write in her
name for president.

It doesn’t seem quite as funny now as it did then.

Let’s imagine, though, that we are still part of the
British Empire, and that Donald Trump has moved to
London and is now Prime Minister.

Imagine him waddling into the House of Commons to
face that jolly good British ordeal known as Prime
Minister’s Questions.

Imagine him trying to explain to the MPs and to the
world on television, why he discussed a North Korean
missile launch in full view and earshot of a dining room
full of swells without security clearances. Imagine the
barrage of questions from the opposition over why he
kept a national security adviser for weeks after he was
warned that the Kremlin had blackmail on the man who, he
knew also, had lied about it.

Imagine him melting down under the jeers from their
benches, if not also from his own side.

Compared to the Commons, Saturday Night Live is
gentle.

Had he been the British P.M., it might not have
gotten even that far. There would have been a
no-confidence vote once it became plain that he and his
family were in it for the boodle rather than for the
nation “Buy Ivanka’s stuff?” Really?

Or perhaps his network of Russian connections would
have brought him down first.

In 1963, the British regarded minister of war, John
Profumo, was forced to resign after admitting that he
had lied to colleagues in denying an affair with a call
girl who was also sleeping with a Russian naval attaché
and spy. The scandal helped to bring down the Harold
Macmillan government a year later.

What’s hardest to imagine, of course, is that Trump
would have become prime minister in the first place.

In the British parliamentary system, someone like him
could never get near 10 Downing Street, except perhaps
as a guest, with staff assigned to carefully watch the
silver.

Although Britain has no written constitution or law
requiring that the prime minister be a member of the
Commons, tradition demands it. There hasn’t been a PM
who wasn’t since Lord
Home was appointed in 1963, and even he quickly
resigned his peerage so that he could be elected to the
Commons. It is also assumed that the PM will be the
leader of his or her party in the Commons.

Nigel Farage, the British politician most like Trump,
has failed five times to win a seat in Parliament.

It’s theoretically possible for either of the major
party conferences to elect a leader who isn’t a member
of Parliament, but in practical terms it’s impossible.
Labour Party rules, a friend in Britain tells me,
require any candidate for party leader to be nominated
by 35 of the party’s MPs. As for the Conservative Party,
someone like Trump simply wouldn’t be their cup of tea.

As all the government ministers are drawn from the
Parliament — Britain
has only two branches of government — the members
are particular about who leads them. The judgments of
these leaders are questioned frequently and fiercely,
but their basic competence is assumed.

Our Founders departed from the British model for good
reasons. But is it possible that the mother country
still has some lessons in governance to teach us?

We can’t require—and we shouldn’t– that our presidents
have Congressional experience. Barely half—25 of
45—have fit that bill. But the parties could—and
should—require by rule a certain number of endorsements
from Congress to become a nominee for president.

Other good British examples:

—They don’t elect judges. (In fact, almost no one
else does.) Theirs are chosen strictly for
professionalism, deportment and experience.

—Their election campaigns are measured in weeks, not
years. Spending is limited strictly.

—All of their election districts are drawn by
professionals and approved by entities called Boundary
Commissions. That’s not to say there are no games played
from time to time, but they don’t have anything like the
gerrymandering scandals that betray our belief in
democracy.

—There are very few political positions jobs at the
highest levels of their government. Ministers come and
go, but civil servants run most things.

—The most attractive example is the regular grilling
that the Prime Minister must endure in the House of
Commons and before the nation.

As in Britain, American Cabinet officers are
frequently before legislative committees, but the
president himself almost never is.

The last time — the only occasion in modern times —
was in October 1974, when President Gerald R.
Ford voluntarily appeared
before a House subcommittee to answer questions
about his pardon of his resigned predecessor, Richard
Nixon.

As it is, we’re likely to have a major showdown soon
over executive privilege. That’s the claim made by
presidents of both parties that their Cabinet officers
and other appointees should not have to tell Congress
what advice they give the boss. There’s nothing in the
Constitution about that, so the line between talk and
action has never been drawn. If the Senate is serious
about probing Trump’s Russian connections, that showdown
must come.

Meanwhile, can we cheer ourselves up with a rousing
chorus of “God
save the Queen?” We already know the tune.

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Martin Dyckman
is a retired associate editor of what is now the Tampa
Bay Times. He is author of Floridian of His Century: The Courage
of Governor LeRoy Collins. He lives in Asheville, North
Carolina. Column courtesy of Florida Politics.

This piece was reprinted by the Columbia County Observer
with permission or license.